Miranda
by Muffin Is Injured
Summary: “No matter how blue this girl’s eyes were, he was not referring to her microwave as Miranda.” It’s 1996, and Lorelai just got a microwave. Mild JavaJunkie oneshot. And it’s random. I mean it.


_I have this newly-formed problem with one-shots. I'm coming up with all these ideas for really random one-shots, and yet I have a multi-chap fic author's note and scenario all typed up and perfect on my computer that my muse refuses to work with. But hey, you can't argue with the muse. The author's note is more humorous there then the actual amount of fic I've managed to force out of myself (on the partial fic on my Word, I mean). I think I wasted all my amusingness in the author's note, and then my muse was all, "Hey, gimme a break, you slave driver, or at least some lemonade or something, because you are overworking me and I will go to someone about this and have you killed or, I don't know, kicked out of the country, or whatever they do to people who disobey child labor laws," when I told it to start the multi chap fic. My muse is very forceful, as you can tell._

_So, yes, I believe you have deduced by now that Muffin is back with another McMuffin (you like that? **pOnDeReSqUe** came up with it) and, if you're a real fire cracker, that this is a one-shot. A random one. And it is._

_I know, I'm sorry, I'm teasing you all and whatnot with my one-shots, but please refer back to my muse if you have any complaints._

_**Dedications?** I'm glad you asked. **The Big Cheese**, who may or may not be dead. But hey, I miss that girl. Them's the repercussions of internet friends._

_**AND!** (Oh, you thought I was done?) Dedications also go out to my delicious beta- yes, I have a beta, and finally! The Lusciously Loined Laura, my Ms. Yellow, or **pOnDeReSqUe** to all you simpletons. My delicious beta and I had many serious beta conversations, most of which went as follows:_

Me: "We're having a serious beta conversation! Like professional writers!"

Her: -squees-

Me: -returns squee-

_She pushed me to post my awkward and random one-shot and participates in orgies with various parts of my writing history. She also watches Korean reality shows with me. Best beta ever._

_**Disclaimer:** I don't own Gilmore Girls. Or Ore-Ida Tater Tots. But if I did, well, the rest of the world wouldn't get any. Tater tots, I mean. I'd share Gilmore Girls, of course. Although this is quite an irrelevant debate, since I own neither of these things. Be glad I don't own Ore-Ida, because you'd get no curly fries or seasoned fries or extra crispy shoestring fries or any of those delicious fried potato morsels. But you can have them, because I don't own it. Ore-Ida, I mean. Not that I own Gilmore Girls either. You don't have to eat Ore-Ida if you don't want to, because some people don't want to, although I can't fathom why, but it's always nicer to know you still have the option. Which you do, because I own nothing. That includes Gilmore Girls. Uhm…_

_**Disclaimer, Take Two:** I don't own anything._

**Guess.**

**Ms. Yellow**: "If I'm ever in a situation where my life flashes before my eyes, it will certainly be amusing." That's, like, deep. Right up there with Socrates and J.D. Salinger. Yes, I have read the Georgia books, and her awkward word choice for everything is really what keeps me reading. Screw the plot. I didn't have Kirk spontaneously growing a mustache in the fic, apologies… I'll try to work that into my next one. Heh, half of your review is you trying to convince me you're younger than me. I love being right. I wish whoopie cushions had melted into my brain via my ears, that would be a good cocktail story. I love your expired pills story. My onion is also brown, thank you for asking. You're so polite when high.

**Lassie**: Where you been, girl-fraynd? I've missed you, and yes, the whole 3-hour-time-zone difference is problematic, but really. You are always playing basketball. I mean, what if I was in the process of being eaten by wolves so I signed on to tell you while I still had retained some blood and you weren't there? Oh God… maybe YOU were eaten by wolves when I wasn't online! Maybe that's why we haven't talked. Oh, my God. I am so sorry. I love your long review, and I will read it aloud at your funeral. I'm off to mourn your passing, excuse me. –giggles-

**Izz oh puppy:** Wait, so that guy actually carried brass knuckles with him to beat people up who were mean to you? WHAT? That is a little over the top, really. Yes, I was a 7th grader last year, meaning I'm 13… -takes on odd voice- _Believe it… or NOT._ Agh, Halloweentown! Fantasmik! I must say, my favorite Halloween Disney movie is, hands-down, Mom's Got a Date with a Vampire. What a classic. I sent you the Hanble- how do ya like it?

**Alexiamanda**: -scrabbles to pick up monocle- Never understood those things. It enlarges one eye and makes you look like the insane teacher from Daria, plus you have to squint continuously. And why would only one eye need it? Count De Numbers… that is so great. Poor GANNON for being SO terrified OF said count who COUNTS. Guadalajara sounds awesome… people are just too damn sensitive these days. You throw birthday parties for yourself and walk around for an entire day with your pants at your knees 'to see if it's any good.' I admire your courage. Tell me how your woodpecker fiasco went.

**Krys33**: I actually searched for at least a half hour online for what a phobia of fireworks is and I found nothing. I did, how ever, find these gems- porphyrophobia is fear of purple, Bolshephobia is a fear of Bolsheviks, and Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia (ding!) is a fear of long words. That last one makes sense, huh? If they try and tell people what's wrong with them, they'll start having a seizure or something. You were Paul? Niiice. No one is ever past the Mary Poppins age, my friend. You can be 80 and singing along with Dick Van Dyke.

**FanOfLOST:** You're _made_ of time? You're a gosh darn scientific marvel. It would almost be awkward to name your child Luke, because Luke is a sex pot, and it's strange to be attracted to one's son. Yes, I just said sex pot. Your principal doesn't sound very pleasant. Psh, I blow my nose at him. How weird is this… you're talking about a three-hour Whose Line marathon on the Monday you reviewed, and today is Monday, and there's another three-hour Whose Line marathon! Freaky, man, a kismet of events. I appreciate your long review, and I will squee about it for many seconds to come.

**Baby Girl Gellar-Green:** School buses suck. But we got to ride a pretty perfect bus with weird TV's and footrests and rainbow chairs. I love it when people fall off of things at my hilarity. That's a bad pirating commercial. Maybe I would steal a purse, huh? Ever thought of that? I think NOT! I love your review to fragments.

**ultimategilmoregirl:** I've seen the Potter Puppet Pals thing. I am greatly amused by it even still. –pouts- You don't get a long shout-out because you only reviewed once, plus you talked the whole time about your sister and the Gilmore DVD, which I'm not quite sure how to respond to. But I still love you.

**oywidapoodles**: You interpreted the definition of shrapnel slightly incorrectly… shrapnel is a bullet that explodes into pieces when it's flying _into_ you, not when someone is flying. So you get hit by the bullet and it explodes all in you, meaning there's a bunch of pieces that are insanely difficult to get out, unlike one solitary bullet. See? Learning is FUN when Muffin's your teacher! I led a study session for science and was making fun of my science teacher from last year by whacking this big stick (SO dirty) on the desk like she used to and yelling a lot, and someone tried to take the stick and we broke it in half. Then I threw the broken part out the window, and later my current science teacher who owned the stick (don't say it) found the broken stick and was like, "Some one broke this stick!" And I was all shocked and like, "That's so terrible! I can't believe that!" –pokes dimple and giggles- Tee hee!

**Lorimar Jayne**: I know he wouldn't, that's why he decided to not pay attention to what she said, and then _Lorelai_ came upstairs and asked him out. Oh, I can do that- it's okay that you're Italian. No, really. We only care minimally. –shifty look, backs away slowly-

**waitingtuesday**: Oh, but I _am_ Alli. –evil stare-

* * *

**Miranda**

It was a turning point, she knew. Everything was different. Everything was better. No longer were her nights empty and cold and consisting of sitting on the sofa waiting for the pizza guy. She could fill her nights with warmth, with heat- hell, even her days if she wanted. Who was to stop her? She had everything now, everything a girl could ever want. Means of comfort and of feeding the restless, hungering beast within her that hadn't been stilled for quite a while.

She had a microwave.

Finally, after months of week-old cold pizza, of trying to thaw Bagel Bites by soaking them in boiling water, of eating raw potatoes- it could all stop. She was in charge of her own life, and by God, it'd be a sad one without that pretty little box. Miranda, she had called it- she'd squealed it decisively the second she saw it, the second she and Rory had struggled with that box Miranda was delivered in and managed to open after 10 minutes and 6 broken fingernails. (The drawbacks of an all female house, she had to admit. People would've paid money to see her try and put that sofa together, hissing and sweating and repeating what came to be her mantra over and over again, "That guy _never_ said it wouldn't come ready. He never said that, did you hear him say anything about that, Rory?" Rory would nod her head here obediently. "I know! I'm not crazy! I mean, God, he never said anything! He should've said something, shouldn't he? He should have. Why didn't he? He definitely didn't. I mean, you heard him, right? Nothing about putting together the damn sofa." Insert absent-minded nod from Rory. She was flicking through the pages of Franny and Zooey but, through inductive reasoning, had learned where exactly she was expected to nod in her mother's little shpiel. "If he had _said_ anything then I would've know, I could've gotten a guy to do this or slapped him until he agreed to send it all together, but he didn't! Aren't you supposed to tell people that? It should be illegal, I swear to God. I mean, he didn't say anything! Did you hear him say anything?")

* * *

"She's definitely a Miranda," Lorelai had said, nodding, sure.

Rory bobbed her head in consent. "Miranda," she purred, stroking the black plastic door lovingly. "How I've missed your warmth."

* * *

After 20 minutes of grunting and shuffling to the kitchen with the microwave in their arms- "I'm going to put this bluntly, Miranda. Lose weight." – the girls managed to dispose of Miranda on the counter.

"Okay, how do we set this baby up?" said Lorelai, opening the instruction manual and holding it upside down. Rory snatched it from her and flicked through it.

"Seems pretty easy, we just have to plug it in and set the clock up." Rory unraveled the cord and began searching for a plug.

"Look at how my 12 year old daughter is taking charge," Lorelai marveled to the imaginary crowd surrounding them.

"I just don't want a repeat of the Uncooperative Couch Incident of '95," said Rory, fiddling with the buttons on the microwave.

"If he had just _said_ something about having to put it together…"

Rory shrieked and clapped her hands. "Ooh! Look! She's lighting up! I turned her on!"

Lorelai suppressed a giggle. "I'm going to refrain from any inappropriate comments."

"I appreciate that." Rory turned the blinking 12:00 into a 15:45.

'The clock is British style," noted Lorelai. "Good thing, too, because I might've wandered down here at three in the morning and thought I was extraordinarily late for work."

Rory opened the microwave door. "There's a light!" She closed it again with an echoing click. "There's no light. There's a light! No light. Day! Night! Yin! Yang! Good! Evil! Up! Down! Girls! Boys!"

Lorelai clutched her daughter's wrist and slammed her elbow onto the microwave door, keeping it closed. "Honey, you're annoying even _me_, which is a pretty amazing feat."

* * *

They had rushed to Doose's after setting Miranda up and bought every single microwavable food imaginable.

* * *

"Just think of the possibilities," Lorelai said, tossing six pepperoni Bagel Bite trays into the basket on top of the ever-growing mound of movie-theatre style popcorn, bags of Ore-Ida tater tots and curly fries, extra cheesy pizza, garlic bread, Pillsbury biscuits, and twelve Styrofoam-encased cups of Roast Chicken Top Ramen.

"I am," sighed Rory. "This opens up the entire fast-food window too, you know."

"I know!" agreed Lorelai. "Pizza, burgers, fries, Chinese, Al's… think of all those times we've thrown out stuff because the pizza cheese felt like rubber or the fries went soggy. Poof! Vanished. Now, we get to heat them up with weird radiation so we don't notice the sogginess or the rubberiness!"

"It's amazing!" Rory twirled down the aisle and grabbed a back of marshmallows. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

Lorelai grabbed the bag with a squeal. "Ohh, I've missed my haywire scientific experiments!"

"You'll also miss the maids cleaning up after you when you explode the entire bag all over the kitchen."

"True, but I'll _also_ miss my mother screaming at me for 27 minutes straight- I counted- until her face turned red and she lost her voice. It balances out." Lorelai smiled dreamily at the memory. "She couldn't talk for three days. It was heaven. I came back at 3 in the morning one night, and she was screaming at me like she was in a silent movie. I just shrugged and pretended I was trapped in a glass box and went into my room. Never did get in trouble." She chuckled.

"I love how you exploded marshmallows in the microwave one night and stayed out till 3 in the morning the next," said Rory. "Your maturity is like a yo-yo."

"Mom took away the microwave after that incident," recalled Lorelai. "I wasn't even 15 yet." A small frown appeared on her face. "On second thought, get three bags. And make it the pink and green and yellow ones."

* * *

Lorelai became obsessed with Miranda.

* * *

"Mom," groaned Rory as she entered the kitchen, tossing her backpack onto the kitchen table. "Shouldn't you be at work?"

"Rory! Did you know that Miranda has a _reminder_ button that you can press? And you set the time? And when you do that, she beeps obnoxiously at you?"

"Why yes, I did know that, considering that you've secretly set said timer for 3:07 in the morning for the past three days, rudely interrupting my REM cycle."

Lorelai snickered.

Rory collapsed into a chair. "Mom, please. Step away from Miranda and do something productive."

"Rory, how is testing and perfecting the perfect amount of time for popcorn to be in the microwave not productive?"

"You've wasted seven bags, one of which is on fire in the sink."

Lorelai rolled her eyes. "It's only smoking copiously now, it's been in the running sink for a half hour. And it's not like I burned the house down with it, only part of your bedroom rug. How was I to know that 30 minutes was too long for popcorn to pop? As we can recall, I haven't used a microwave for 13 years. Plus, you think my mother would've let me bring microwavable popcorn in the house? Think again, mister."

Rory sprang up from her chair and ran into her room. "Mom! You burnt my rug? I can't believe you!"

"You told me you hated that rug."

"Well, yes, I did-"

"You said the yellow in the flower petals didn't match your complexion."

"But when I said that, I didn't expect you to burn-"

"Watch out!" shot out Lorelai, her pitch jerking up and down. "You might get what you're after!"

Rory groaned and dropped her head. "Mom…"

"Cool babies! Strange but not a stranger! I am an or-di-na-ry guy!"

"Burning down the house, yes, I know. However, I don't believe Talking Heads would've thrown a bag of burning popcorn into their hypothetical daughter's room, leaving their rug to singe." She sniffed distastefully and waved a hand in front of her face. "It smells like yuck."

"_You_ smell like yuck," Lorelai replied intelligently. "And it's 2 minutes and 48 seconds."

"The amount of time you'll have to live when I lock you in my room until you suffocate?"

"The amount of time to put the popcorn in. Trust me… it gets you the maximum number of popped kernels left in the bag without actually blackening any piece."

"Fascinating," muttered Rory, cracking her window open and retrieving her backpack from the kitchen. "Truly fascinating."

* * *

"Burger to go, Duke, I'm in a rush." Lorelai flopped onto a stool and tapped her fingers on the counter in a tune that sounded suspiciously like a Talking Heads song.

Luke rolled his eyes. He had already given up on trying to get that insanely irritating woman to stop calling him Duke.

* * *

"It makes me sound like a prince or something."

"But baby, you're royalty to me."

"Or a dog," he continued. "Like that dog in the cartoons- Marmaduke or something? Stupid dog, always trying to eat Thanksgiving dinner or run away from his house or drive a car or something equally insane."

"Say stupid like that again, Duke, it just makes me want to yelp and yelp and… rawr, down girl, down!" She pretended to squirt herself with a water spray bottle.

Luke shook his head.

* * *

He called into the kitchen, "Cheeseburger well done, grilled onions, no lettuce, extra ketchup, medium fries."

_Medium fries? _She shook her head vigorously. "Large."

"Is what Lorelai will be soon if she doesn't eat healthily," he finished.

"No, large is the amount of how much Lorelai does not care."

Luke was unyielding. "You really want me to give you decaf? I will."

She pouted. "Mean."

"Mean and lean as a green bean eating machine."

"Nevermind, I retract my statement. Large is the size of Duke's ego."

Luke poured her a cup of coffee and pushed it towards her, propping his elbows up on the counter's edge. "So, you dared to part from your microwave tonight?"

Lorelai gasped and placed a hand over her heart. "You remembered! You really do care."

"You yak so much that something has to stick."

Lorelai ignored his comment. "Well, it _is_ almost closing, and I realized, I hadn't had a Duke's diner burger in quite a while, what with my newfound obsession with Ore-Ida Steak Fries."

"Caught a bit of that myself."

"_But_," added Lorelai, biting her lip, "you forgot to call her Miranda. You must always call her Miranda."

"I am not calling your microwave by name." Luke pulled out his rag and wiped the counter around her down to slick nothingness, his muscles playing slightly under his rolled up flannel shirt. Lorelai didn't watch, though.

"But it hurts her feelings. How would you like it if I went around calling you 'that guy that works at the diner' all day? 'Oh, off to get coffee from that guy that works at the diner. Yeah, that guy that works at the diner has some odd fetish for plaid. You know who wouldn't give me the correct amount of fries the other day? That guy that works at the diner.' See? Kinda insensitive."

"Almost as insensitive as, say, calling her Duke all the time?" He smiled wryly.

Lorelai looked down and laughed slightly, her cheeks faintly red. "Maybe."

He continued to stare at her, his mouth jerked into as close of a smile as it possibly could. Her eyes, he noticed, were really, really blue. Had they always been that blue?

She ducked her head and bit on her nails coolly, but he could see her smile through her hair.

Silence was shattered by Lorelai's order being shoved through the order window. "Cheeseburger, fries."

Luke grabbed the container and handed it to her. "Here ya go. Have fun not eating my burger for a week and warming it up in your microwave and eating it then." No matter how blue this girl's eyes were, he was not referring to her microwave as Miranda.

Lorelai smirked. "I intend to." She opened her purse and pulled out a fiver, dropping it on the counter. "Change is all yours." She slung the bag over her shoulder, grabbed the carton, and made for the door.

She turned to him, halfway through the door, and he was struck again by just how blue her eyes were. She smiled at him, put a strand of hair to rest behind her ear. "You know, you've taught me a very important lesson today."

Luke lifted his lip into a crude grin, a rarity from him. There was a shift in the air, and Luke thought that maybe this might be a turning point.

"Thanks… Miranda." And she disappeared through the door, the bell's jingle reverberating long after she'd gone.

Luke shook his head and flipped the sign over to closed. He didn't think he'd ever figure her out.

* * *

Oh, it's good to be back. I've got some more Incredibly Random One-shots in the works, so be on the look out.

-knowing wink at beta-


End file.
